Transcript

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>> After a vicious election season that brought heated words, and at times false and racist claims across social media, Silicon Valley giants are responding. Twitter, Tuesday taking on the trolls that have made the platform a notorious cyber-bullying zone, possibly even sinking Twitter's effort to sell itself. The company upgrading its mute option to allow users to block tweets, not just from certain accounts, but also based on keywords and phrases.

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The changes come a day after Facebook and Google shared crackdowns on fake news. Reuters' Tech Editor, Jonathan Weber.>> The election, in many ways, brought out the worst in people in terms of their tendency to argue, to be very vociferous in their views, and maybe harshly critical or insulting towards people who don't agree with them.

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So, I think that you certainly saw that phenomena on social media.>> In the thick of election season, phony news sites had lured readers with such lies as the Pope endorsing Trump, to Hillary Clinton's Campaign Chief practicing Satanic rituals. Much of the fake headlines targeted Clinton, leading to accusations they helped fuel a Donald Trump victory, something Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied.

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But after a public outcry, Zuckerberg and the heads of Google announcing new measures to limit how much money phony sites make from advertising, which is their main source of income and a key driver of their existence.>> So, it was a very interesting little loop there. So, you create some fake news, generally, by copying it from some other fake news site, you publish it on your site, you share it in a clever way on Facebook, so that then lots of people share it around on Facebook.

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That generates clicks back to your website, then people see your Google ads, and then you get paid by Google.>> Not for long if the companies are able to deliver. With election season over, the crackdown begins.